


Laughing

by crossingwinter



Series: Somewhat canonical [14]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Betrayal, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-19
Updated: 2009-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 22:46:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/496494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, when you don't know what to do with yourself, when the world is falling apart around you, you laugh.</p><p>A Sirius Drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laughing

He stood there, laughing. He was laughing harder than he had ever laughed in his life, and he wondered if he might fall down, he was laughing so hard.

He didn't find it funny.

He found it ironic.

He found it heartbreaking.

He found it hateful.

 _It was a clever move, really, Pete_ , he thought,  _Very clever. Blowing up the whole street like that._

He hadn't laughed in a while, and it was certainly the hardest he had ever laughed over  _Peter_. Stupid Peter Pettigrew. Slow, pudgy, clingy—adjectives that made Sirius cringe even thinking about them. How had he suggested that Peter be the Secret Keeper? How could he have done that? He had wanted nothing to do with him in their first year. He had wanted it to be just him and James. But James had liked Remus all right, and they couldn't just leave Peter out, could they.

Of course, if they had, maybe he would be laughing with James right now. James, who had been his partner in crime, his best friend, the one who had everything he, Sirius, had wanted and was willing to share. Brave, loyal, humorous and dead. Dead as a doornail. He had seen the corpse. Didn't even have a wand in his hand, the moron. Only James would charge Death blindly without any means of self-defense.

And Lily too! How he had teased her! And she just accepted it and shot it right back at him. He had spent  _years_  thinking bitter thoughts about her because she just rejected James time and time again. But he didn't hate her. He couldn't. Because she was the only ginger he knew that he liked, and she made him think harder than he ever had had to before about  _why_  he disagreed with his family.

He had seen her dead body, too. It was slightly less crushed than James' had been, since she had not been on the ground level of the house when it had collapsed.

He didn't have the guts to cry for them. He had never cried in his life and if ever he started, it would be for them. But he wasn't brave enough to start. He didn't know if he would be able to stop.

He didn't think that they would have wanted it. So he laughed.

He laughed harder than he had ever laughed in his life. And when his wand was pulled magically from his hand, he did not resist. When he was tied up, he did not struggle. When Ministry Members pulled him away from the "gas explosion," he laughed and laughed and laughed.


End file.
